"Almost double that of the UFC" - Chatri Sityodtong on ONE Championship's finishing rate

ONE Championship CEO Chatri Sityodtong recently commented and compared ONE to the UFC. Sityodtong said that ONE Championship has a much higher finish rate in fights when directly compared to the UFC.

The organization hosts multiple combat sports such as MMA, kickboxing, Muay Thai and submission grappling. In addition to offering more combat sports, Sityodtong asserts the action in ONE is better. He spoke with Jiu Jitsu Times to explain. He said:

“At ONE, if I look at our competition department – which organizes all the matchmaking and signs all the athletes – they put on fights with a 70 percent finish rate, which is almost double that of the UFC and Bellator. We try to do the most exciting matchups, and all our athletes – in MMA, in kickboxing, in jiu-jitsu – they’re all finishers."

ONE Championship's upcoming event will take place on April 22 and will be headlined by both Kickboxing and Muay Thai title matches. Also featured at this event will be submission grappling. This will showcase Mikey Musumeci, a five-time Brazilian Jiu Jitsu champion. He will engage in a grappling match against Japanese MMA veteran Masakazu Imanari.

With Jiu Jitsu Times, Sityodtong discussed this upcoming submission grappling match and how he thinks it will play out:

"Mikey Musumeci is fighting [Masakazu] Imanari in ONE. Imanari’s obviously the heel hook specialist, so that’s going to be a fun match... If you match up a finisher with a finisher, it’s like two lions or lionesses coming in. Twelve minutes, fifteen minutes – it doesn’t matter, they’ll look for the finish... So, I don’t think Imanari versus Mikey is going to end with a decision."

Again, Sityodtong re-affirms his commitment that ONE Championship matches are more likely to end in a finish.

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Chatri Sityodtong Discusses ONE Grappling Matches

Adding submission grappling to ONE Championship seemed like a natural move. ONE has signed some of the best grappling in jiu jitsu players history, many of which have already competed. Chatri Sityodtong discussed adding submission grappling.

"I think that ONE is going to be the game-changing platform that brings jiu-jitsu to the mainstream globally, at the largest scale possible. So that jiu-jitsu athletes will not only have a bigger fanbase but also more sponsorship opportunities and bigger fight purses than ever seen before in history.”

Sityodtong also went on to explain that the idea to add grappling all started when they signed Gary Tonnon, a world jiu jitsu champion.

"It’s a celebration of the greatest martial artists on the planet, and when I first signed Garry, we did a Shinya Aoki versus Garry Tonon submission grappling match – and that’s the first time Asia’s ever seen that in primetime, free-to-air TV, and it was a hit! So the seed was planted."

Currently ONE has several world champion grapplers such as Buchecha, Gordon Ryan, Gary Tonnon, Danielle Kelly, Andre Galvão, and Mikey Musumeci.

Musumeci will be competing on April 22 on ONE: Eersel vs. Sadikovic. Chatri Sityodtong says he feels blessed and lucky that all these athletes want to work with ONE.